A crime thriller that takes place during the most spectacular Easter celebration in the world. Hosts of hooded penitents parade through the ancient, narrow streets of Seville in a time-honored ritual. But for one celebrant this Holy Week is different. For him Semana Santa is time to kill. As the death toll mounts, it falls to detective Maria Delgado--mistrusted outsider from Madrid--to stop the bizarre killings. A difficult enough task made even more thankless by the prejudiced masculinity of her colleagues--particularly Quemada and Torillo both troubled by their own conflicting views of what a woman should be. And when 80-year-old Catalina, sole survivor of a Spanish Civil War massacre, reluctantly gives Maria the help she needs to find killer, this strange old lady's information merely compounds the mystery. For it seems the only realistic suspect has been dead for twenty years.